Figure 1.--.
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Figure 1.--. |
The buzz cut is another short hair style. HBC is not sure how some of these short hair styles varied. The buzz cut appears to have been a popular style in the 1990s as the long hair styles of the 1970s and 80s decline in popularity.
HBC is not sure how to define a buzz cut. One reader suggests that it is one done with a clipper (buzz.....). Usually looking like an
army style cut... cut short with clippers all over... sometimes longer on top of head, but still done with clippers (ie prob not longer than half inch or so) or shaved with a razor to completely bald.
We are not sure just when the term"buzz-cut" first began to be used. Nor or we sure about differences between the buzz-cut and the cropped hair commonly worn by boys in the latec19th and early 20th centuries. We believe that the buzz cur may have first appeared in the 1980s, but it could have been much earlier..
The buzz cut was primarily a boys' hair style, but some girls did wear them. A Canadian HBC reader comments, "I was just reading your webpage on dresses and frock suits for boys and noted that you havent heard of girls with buzzcuts. I just thought I should tell you I know one, who is 12 and lives in Canada... I am sending photo from Christmas 1999 with another girl also 11 at the time." [HBC is unable to uploa the images provided because pemission was not obtaine from the indiviuals involved.]
The Canadian reader reports, "I myself have had buzzed on sides since 1984, sometimes also buzzed on top leaving just bangs, or buzzed all over... between 1/8" long and 3/8" long... but then I was 21 then, 37 now... scarcely a "girl"... and also it is seen to be a
fairly radical haircut... seen as punk or alternative then... dykey... now probably just seen as "very short. -- Leanne" Some girls wear their hair buzzed, but with little ponytail longer in very back of neck.
An Australian reader writes, "The Buzzcut was a truely American style. A Mormon missionary or elder told me so. It was
originally a college (university) hair cut style. It was usually very short at the back. My old school
friend Lloyd, an American boy but living in Australia, told me that his brother in college, had this cut. He liked it and wanted one. So we had it done. My dad went ballistic, but let me be because 2 years later I had moppy long hair which annoyed him a lot. So I had this style once and thought it was cool except at the back of my head and upper neck with chilly winds of winter giving me goosebumps."
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